The other evening I had the opportunity to work with one of our project managers, and it so happened that the project we were asked to bid was an egress (escape) window.

The homeowners were engaged in a rather extensive remodeling of the basement, turning it into a very livable recreation, media, and crafts level of the home. Their objective was to add light to the area, as well as a way in and out of the basement other than the stairway at the far end of the room.

There were 3 young boys playing in the rec room and mom was on her computer in the craft room.

We never did discuss probably the most important topic relative to egress windows, the survivability of one’s home in the event of a fire.

According to FEMA, there are an average of 6500 basement fires in the United States annually, resulting in about 65 deaths and 400 injuries. While it might seem that a basement fire could happen to someone else, the fact that there are nearly 20 such fires every night is sobering.

If you have a lower level you intend to utilize as living space, make sure you research options for exit in the event of a fire. Whether a window or several windows, a second door, or access by a second stairway, it’s critical to understand that one way out may not be enough in an emergency, especially for younger family members or pets.

Your egress window contractor should be able to suggest ideas and alternatives that will make your lower level living space not only safe but also a great investment.

Our company, Basement Repair Specialists, has installed hundreds of egress windows and can recommend the best solution for your home. If you have an egress window project, please make sure you do your research and hire a reputable company with experience in this type of installation. Your family and your wallet will thank you.

I often compare our industry to the automotive repair business. How many of us go with our car to the repair shop with a stalling engine, or a jerky transmission, or some other problem only to find out that the cost of the suggested repair is many thousands of dollars? At that point, we have a problem. Do we believe our repair shop, or not? This is an eternal problem in business: can we trust the company selling to us, or are they taking us to the proverbial cleaners?

Our company motto is A Great Job at a Great Price®. Our philosophy as a company is to deliver high value for the money, and we believe in that goal entirely. Interestingly enough, we have a trademark on the phrase “A Great Job at a Great Price®.” We find it a bit amusing that in the more than 240 years our country has existed, we were the first company to protect the concept of giving a great job at a great price!

So what’s the point?

There are many individuals in our industry more than happy to take benefit from a crisis for their own personal enrichment. Often these individuals promise phantom discounts or unrealistic claims for work to be performed. “Sign today, and we will discount this by 25%,” for one example. 25%? We don’t’ have that much net margin in our jobs, so how can anyone even offer that. Another example–in our region we have a contractor that every year advertises “75% off labor!” Seriously. So they are paying their guys $15 an hour normally and now will pay them less than $4 an hour? Or normally they mark up their labor 400%, but this month only the markup is only 100%? How does that even work? Answer: it doesn’t, it’s just a marketing ploy, and when things seem fishy, don’t buy.

When you contract with a basement repair company, check for the following:

Do they explain a few options, or push one?

Are they willing to tell you some options that don’t even involve doing business with their company, such as better landscaping or maintaining gutters and downspouts?

Do they have a different price if you agree now, and another if you wait to think about it? NEVER sign a contract, in our industry or another, where the price is dependent on immediate agreement. We hold our pricing for 30 days as a matter of policy, and anyone providing a discount for immediate acceptance is not to be trusted.

Do they make extravagant claims, like 75% off labor, double lifetime warranty, free lifetime guarantee, etc? If it sounds too good to be true, it surely is.

Do you feel pressure? Too much pressure from a home improvement specialist is a bad thing, and if you are getting that vibe, don’t buy, and if it’s over the top call your state’s consumer protection department.

Final word: basement repairs often cost many thousands of dollars by their very nature, and just like car repairs, big money can bring out the shadier side of the spectrum. Make sure you understand everything before handing over your hard earned money and NEVER submit to pressure tactics.

Individuals faced with the prospect of spending many thousands of dollars repairing a sinking or settling foundation have an important decision to make—helical piles or push piers? A homeowner’s decision is made, normally, with the information provided by the companies selling the work to the homeowner. This process, depending on the skill and motivations of the presenter, can lead to misinformed or incorrect outcomes.

For starters, when selecting a contractor to complete the work, it is important to find one like our company, Basement Repair Specialists, that stocks and installs both helical piles and push piers. The reason for this is simple: it is critical that your contractor is not trying to sell you a solution just because it is the only one they can perform.

While there are situations where a push pier can be adequate or even preferred due to particular conditions in a residential application, generally speaking the best way to support a sinking or settled foundation is helical piles. So why do we say that?

Our preference for helical piles is based on the inherent accuracy of the system and the ability to better control the outcome in terms of capacity at each pile. Additionally, helical piles installed with digital torque monitoring devices can provide engineers and homeowners with a written log verifying that the product was installed correctly.

A brief definition of terms: a helical pile is one that is turned into the soil like a screw until it reaches the required capacity or reaches soil strata or rocks that refuse it, while a push pier is one that is hydraulically pressed into the soil and similarly reaches capacity or is terminated due to refusal.

Push piers are typically cheaper to install, since they don’t necessarily require excavation equipment and can be installed with minimal mechanical equipment. It is for this reason that they are often preferred by contractors, and tend to be pushed harder by the sales staff of these contractors. Helical piles, on the other hand, require drive heads to rotate the pile, and heavier machinery such as a skid steer or excavator to apply downward force on the pile as it is installed. The process of installing helical piles requires installers with a higher skill level. While they may be more costly to install, helical piles have the potential to be very budget friendly.

Potential cost savings are available with helical piles for two reasons, spacing and precision. The spacing between pile locations for helical piles can generally be greater than that for push piers, and a lead helical design can be created that will allow for a shorter overall pile length, all other things being equal. A shorter pile length has the added benefit of reducing the likelihood of “buckling” from side loads.

At Basement Repair Specialists our process is to first evaluate with laser levels and other methods the degree of sinking or settling of a client’s foundation, as well as the location of the cracks in the foundation that point to a “hinge.” A repair is then designed, which should involve an analysis of (a) the types and holding power of soils around the home by use of soil tests or a test pile, (b) water levels in the soil and whether galvanization is warranted, (c) the numbers of and placement of the piles, and (d) the live and dead loads on the home and required capacity per pile based on these loads. Many residential repairs can be completed by a manufacturer authorized dealer in consultation with its engineers. More sophisticated repairs, or questionable soil conditions may require the involvement of a structural engineer and/or geotechnical engineer to adapt to site specific conditions. Basement Repair Specialists has extensive manufacturer-sponsored training experience and has attended several educational sessions at PierTech’s offices in Missouri. As a certified installer for PierTech, Basement Repair Specialists has access to engineering advice at the manufacturer’s plant. In addition, Basement Repair Specialists has a network of local and national engineering resources for more complex situations.

If you are considering helical piles or push piers to address your sinking or settling foundation, be sure that the contractor suggesting the repair is (a) certified, (b) clearly explains the repair and the reasoning behind the repair, (c) encourages you to learn more about the repair, and (d) gives you time to weigh your decision without sales pressure. The more you know about your repair, the more comfortable you will feel in moving ahead with a knowledgeable, professional company that will install a repair that will add value and life to your home for many years to come.

I thought long and hard about writing this article regarding our approach to water control in basements.

Our company, Basement Repair Specialists, uses “water control” to describe our approach to mitigating moisture problems in basements. By the way we are not original in that regard. “Water control” is the term many reputable contractors use to describe a repair that seeks to move water from against the walls of a foundation to a drain tile system which removes it to daylight, or more commonly, a sump pump.

“Water control” is the phrase we use as directly opposed to “waterproofing”—but what’s the difference? In a word, there is normally no difference in a “water control” repair vs. a “waterproofing” repair, but there is a difference in the approach to marketing the repair.

“Waterproofing” is a term that is popular with many contractors because it adds an element of certainty to a repair that if performed correctly will indeed eliminate most water problems in a basement. But neither waterproofing nor water control will guarantee that water will never enter your basement. Think about a river overflowing its banks near a “waterproofed” basement. Clearly water will find its way inside whether through basement windows, cracks in the concrete, or gaps at the top of the wall along the sill plate. Or, if the sewer backs up, water will enter your basement regardless of any repair (please make sure you have sewer backup endorsements on your homeowner’s policy– they are low cost and essential protection).

The point is this. There are many contractors that offer certainty where certainty may not be possible. Double lifetime warrantees and waterproof basements sound comforting, but that assurance should be cause for skepticism. What are you paying for with a warranty that extends out 50 or more years? Very likely, few of the people involved in the transaction will be alive, much less willing to honor agreements made decades ago. Will you really own your home for a double lifetime? Clearly a rhetorical question.

Don’t worry. As a company, we stand behind our work. But more importantly, we believe that a realistic explanation of the likely outcomes of a repair is a more educated and reliable approach than a promise to warranty a waterproof basement for a lifetime.

My friend (and our regional manager) Bob was listening to the topic I was thinking about writing and suggested including a link to a fantastic article by the University of Minnesota about the topic of water control in basements. I had not previously read the article, but he was definitely correct. It is fantastic, and here it is:

By the way, our company installs Approach 5 as its normal repair. This is the most costly way to provide water control, but the most effective. Despite the more costly nature of the repair we install, our prices are generally lower than those offering other repairs that lack some of the elements of Approach 5.

If you are fortunately not at the repair stage please note the excellent advice in the article regarding gutters and grading. There are $100 solutions to basement problems, but they require the foresight to ensure water is not gathering at your foundation. Once these basics are neglected, there may be no option but a major repair.

A nearly 10 year old study commissioned by the City of Menasha, Wisconsin points out some of the challenges inherent in the wall anchor method of repairing bowed basement walls in expansive clay soils, specifying among other things that anchor systems should be installed below the frost line (which naturally varies from season to season and can extend below the footing of a shallow foundation home that is 4 to 5 foot deep).

The concerns raised in this report have not altered the behaviors of most companies in the foundation repair business who continue to install anchors and tension systems without site specific engineering or soil reports to back their work.

As the owner of Basement Repair Specialists, a contracting company with offices in Appleton, WI and Lake Elmo, MN that repairs failing foundations, I can verify that every year we re-repair foundations, often wall anchors installed in unfavorable soil types that have failed, notwithstanding the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars homeowners have invested in these failed attempts. I won’t even begin to approach the ethical implications of this.

As a company, Basement Repair Specialists does not advocate nor will we install wall anchors or other tension systems in the highly to very highly expansive clay soils we have in Wisconsin. These systems are an inferior option to removing and replacing faulty backfill soils next to the foundation, which are the source of the problem. It should be obvious that anchoring a wall to the soil that is moving and causing the failed wall in the first place is not the best way to address lateral pressures on a wall. In addition, such repairs do nothing to address exterior water conditions which can be brought indoors by holes penetrating the wall to allow for the anchors to be installed.

Generally speaking a bowed wall is the result of lateral inward pressure on the wall. Depending on type and drainage, particularly when they have a high linear extensibility rating, soils can exert substantial pressure on basement walls due to among other things frost heave and thaw cycles, saturation and desaturation of soils, and the expansive characteristics of the soil itself.

These soil conditions can easily exert forces in excess of a concrete wall’s ability to withstand. A study by the City of Amherst NY at http://www.amherst.ny.us/pdf/building/soilsstudy/TOASFS_section3.pdf discusses the problems related to improper backfill and how prevalent are foundation failures due to simple errors during the construction of houses, and how poor backfill conditions can provide situations where lateral soil loads actually exceed a wall’s theoretical design strength (ability to handle the horizontal load applied to the wall due to soil expansion).

Many contractors prefer to install wall anchor systems since they do not require excavation and are less costly to install. A wall anchor system avoids the investment involved with removing truckloads of faulty soils and properly disposing of them, then backfilling with many tons of aggregate to prevent lateral loads in the future. But a foundation repair contractor’s profitability model is not a good reason to implement an inadequate repair that stands a chance of failure in the future. Any basement wall repair that requires continued bolt tightening by the homeowner to keep in force its warranty should be viewed with considerable skepticism. A wonderfully succinct and unbiased webpage is at https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/landdevelopment/sites/landdevelopment/files/assets/documents/pdf/publications/marine_clay_guide.pdf and tellingly excludes any mention of wall anchors as a repair method for bowing basement walls in expansive clay soils. There are some additional great tips for avoiding the problem in the first place such as proper grading and extension of downspouts.

Where soil types are questionable or poor, the best way to prevent further damage is to remove the offending soil, ensure proper drain tile installation, and backfill with clean stone– all of which ensures lateral loads on the walls are well below stress levels that could move the wall. Then, structural supports can be added, yielding a result that is stronger than a newly constructed wall.